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Budweiser's Brewer Won't Burn Coal

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the world’s biggest beer maker, plans to get all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

The move will require shifting 6 terawatt-hours of electricity from fossil-fuel plants to wind, solar and other renewable sources, the Leuven, Belgium-based company said in a statement Tuesday. That’s almost enough to power all of Spain for a month.

The company’s announcement comes the same day U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order to unravel rules to combat climate change, including cutting power-sector emissions. The timing was a coincidence, according to AB InBev Chief Executive Officer Carlos Alves De Brito. Fighting climate change with renewable energy is good for the bottom line, he said.

“This has no political connotations at all.” Brito said. “We just think this is good for our business and the environment.”

AB InBev plans to generate as much as 25 percent of its electricity itself, including by installing solar panels on its facilities. The company will buy the rest directly from wind and solar farms.

The plan includes an agreement to buy 490 gigawatt-hours annually from Iberdrola SA to power AB InBev’s facilities in Mexico. Iberdrola will build a 220-megawatt wind farm in the state of Puebla that will begin operations in 2019 to help supply the power.